August 2019 Come Follow Me and Ministering – The Holy Ghost Teacheth
This month, the August 2019 Come Follow Me Ministering Printable talks about “I need the Holy Ghost in order to understand the things of God” in the “Come, Follow Me” manual and Elder Mathias Held’s talk from April 2019 General Conference.
These ministering printables are a great way to help families incorporate the “Come, Follow Me” lessons into their own study. They are also perfect for Young Women’s, Relief Society or Sunday School.
Download June 2019 Come Follow Me and Ministering Printable
To play off Elder Held’s metaphor of using our two eyes to help give us deeper perspective, I thought I would pair this August 2019 Come Follow Me printable with glasses. And since it is summer, I went with fun sunglasses from the 99 Cent Store! But I may have done too good of a job on making the printable force you to focus. It hurts my eyes to look at it!
August 2019 Come Follow Me Ministering Printable
Not in the Words which Man’s Wisdom Teacheth, but Which the Holy Ghost Teacheth
My first year of college I heard that you could test out of the Physical Science general education class. I decided to give it a shot. As an English major, I felt that I really didn’t need an advanced understanding of science. And testing out of the class was a great opportunity to save time and money! Plus, I figured I had a real chance at passing the test. I had always done well in science, had taken AP Chemistry, and was good at taking tests.
Unfortunately, when I took the test I realized that a lot of the questions were on physics. I knew hardly anything about physics! But I figured that I could use what I knew from other subjects and my intuition to answer the questions. Turns out that physics is not intuitive. And that no matter how much you know about chemistry, it isn’t going to help much with physics. I didn’t pass the test. But I did end up taking the class and loved it. I got an “A” and learned a lot about the laws of physics. It was like a light bulb had come on that I didn’t even know existed.
The Holy Ghost Helps Us Understand the Things of God
In the “Come, Follow Me” manual for August 19-25, Be Perfectly Joined Together, it talks about 1 Corinthians 2:9–16 and how we need the Holy Ghost to understand the things of God. Just like using chemistry principles to figure out physics can lead to a lot of wrong answers and misunderstandings, so can using “the spirit of the world” to understand the things of God. We need to become familiar with spiritual laws and spiritual language to understand spiritual things.
1 Corinthians 2:12-14 says, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
How to Experiment on the Word
God gives these things to us freely. He doesn’t want to hide the ball from us. But you wouldn’t try to prove the laws of physics by using chemistry experiments. We need to do spiritual experiments to prove the laws by which God operates.
Alma talks about how to conduct such experiments when he says, “But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.” (Alma 32:27) Alma teaches that this particle of faith is like planting a seed of belief and nurturing it to see what kind of fruit grows of it. The Lord promises that our understanding will be enlightened and our minds will expand. As our tree of faith takes root, it becomes stronger and will bring forth much fruit. But we can’t skip right to the fruit. We have to plant the seed and nurture it first.
Two Perspectives
In the April 2019 General Conference, Elder Mathias Held talked about how when he and his wife were investigating the church, they saw many rational reasons why the church was good – no paid clergy, friendly, family-centered, and its humanitarian aide. But it wasn’t until the voice of the Spirit spoke to their hearts that they knew they needed to be baptized.
Elder Held went on to explain that both our physical eyes work together to give us an accurate perspective. When they focus together they allow us to see a three-dimensional image of our surroundings. Likewise, our rational minds and the Holy Ghost work together to allow us to more accurately view the world.
“We have been given two sources of information, through our physical and spiritual capacities. Our mind produces one perception through our physical senses and through our reasoning. But through the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Father has also provided us with a second perspective, which is really the most important and true one because it comes directly from Him. But since the whisperings of the Spirit are often so subtle, many people are not consciously aware of that additional source.”
When these two perspectives are then combined in our souls, one complete picture shows the reality of things as they truly are. In fact, through the additional perspective of the Holy Ghost, certain “realities,” as pictured exclusively through our mental understanding, can be exposed as deceiving or plainly wrong. Remember the words of Moroni: “By the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”
In my 31 years as a member of the Church, I have experienced many times that if we rely only on our rational mind and deny or neglect the spiritual understanding we can receive through the whisperings and impressions of the Holy Ghost, it is as if we were going through life with only one eye. But figuratively speaking, we have actually been given two eyes. Only the combination of both views can give us the true and complete picture of all truths and of everything we experience in our lives, as well as of the whole and profound understanding of our identity and purpose as children of a living Heavenly Father.
The Importance of Discerning Through the Spirit
Elder Held said, “We should learn to discern the truth not only through our rational minds but also through the very still and small voice of the Spirit.”
Looking back, I was glad that I took the time to learn about physics. It helped me understand the world a little more. But I can’t imagine my life without the ability to see and understand spiritual things. As President Russell M. Nelson said, “in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”
